A former glamour model is set to take an Uttlesford District Council to court after it threw out her application to keep lemurs at a private animal sanctuary.
Jodie Marsh claims the council did not follow the rules when refusing her application for a dangerous wild animal licence, which was rejected by the authority’s licensing and environmental health committee in July.
Her rescue centre, Fripps Farm, in Lindsell, north of Braintree and Great Dunmow, has received strong opposition from the local community.
Ms Marsh says she’s "looking forward" to her court date to appeal the decision by the council, and claimed that the council has been "unlawful" in rejecting her application.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "We’ve lodged our appeal with the Magistrates court.
"It’s going to cost the council thousands and thousands of pounds to defend it. Wasting yet more money from the residents of Uttlesford.
"We’ve actually found out, well my barrister has, that the reason they rejected my licence is actually unlawful.
"They didn’t stick to the requirements of the licence and took irrelevant factors into account."
The council meeting in July heard how on two occasions the ex-model had taken a baby meerkat she was hand-rearing to a pub.
At the hearing, Ms Marsh insisted the young animal could not be left alone at the time. The committee was also told on another occasion Ms Marsh took an owl to the pub.
The council’s panel raised concerns about the incidents with the meerkat and the owl as well as noise from the lemurs and the impact of that on the community.
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At the meeting in July, councillor Richard Freeman, chairman of the meeting, said: "The panel are concerned that the incident with the meerkat highlighted that the applicant was prepared to undertake significant work to support its development, however, there are aspects whereby the impact of having to undertake this work were not conducive to her wider life and this led to her making the decision to take the animal to the pub on at least two occasions.
"The panel is not convinced by her approach or responses which were given."
Uttlesford Council was unavailable to comment.
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